dspeyer

> For there is a good argument to the effect that if metaphysical realism is true, then global skepticism is also true, that is, it is possible that all of our referential beliefs about the world are false.

But they're not going to tell us what the argument is.

This extremely counter-intuitive claim seems to be the heart of their argument. I suspect they're using sloppy language to confuse the difference between knowledge and certainty, but since they never spell it out I don't know.

It doesn't seem worth it for Intel to measure MTBF. By the time they got good numbers for a specific chip, they'd be trying to sell its successor.

Until he started talking about the history of the Yeardye family. One long digression about some specific people I have no previous reason to care about is tolerable. When he went back to them I decided to drop the article and just read comments, because the gossip/substance ratio was clearly too high.

more text

let's test this

hello ‮backward world

IIRC, when Windows file browser sees a .exe file, it looks inside the file for the program's icon and only uses the window thing if it doesn't find one. Nothing stops the program's icon from being the same as a Word doc.

That's part of the point. A single man -- even one who has engaged in violence -- can create peace in a situation where revenge is natural. In fact I wonder if his past willingness to use violence when he thought it justified is what gave him the credibility to say "it's not justified now" at the critical moment.

> leading the peaceful transition of his nation

This point deserves more expounding, which I'm not qualified to write. Apartheid was brutal, and the victims suddenly became the majority in a democracy. It's the sort of situation where you'd expect an eternal cycle of vengeance. But there wasn't one. There was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and probably other things, and then there was peace. There are few achievements in history to which this can be compared.

The videos are short on details, and I'm a little sceptical. A lot of it seems to involve removing Lithium from Lion batteries. I'm told that can be done with wire cutters, but I don't think you can buy those inside the sterile zone.

Alternative proposal: take the package to the customer's phone. At this sort of timing, "where I am now" is better than "where I usually am".

The customer must have a smartphone and place the order with Amazon's special app. The app then continually uploads the customer's gps data to Amazon so the drone can target. Once the drone gets close, the phone also gives a distinctive beacon using wifi for the drone to hone in on. When it's time to receive the package, the app displays a specific QR code and the drone scans it.

It's the customer's responsibility to be outside at the right time, but the app will tell them when to within a few minutes. Likewise, if the phone's battery dies during delivery, the delivery is aborted for a partial refund (the app provides warnings).

Some people will worry about accruing "failure to receive" charges due to Amazon's failings, but once a good track record is established, that will fade. Others will worry about the NSA seizing all that location data, but they already have it from the cell phone companies.

90% is probably good enough for Amazon package delivery. The other 10% they send out another one. The cost of this is included in the fast-delivery surcharge. Unique and living products are not eligible for air delivery.

I'm interested in reading opposing views, but not stupid ones. If there's a large inferential gap, it often takes me a while to tell the difference. Does this software have a way to distinguish?

Your claim is the exact opposite of what he wrote. Do you have any evidence?

I have worked on codebases (in javascript) that did essentially this.

I tweaked private members from outside the class.

I never regretted it.

There's probably a moral here, but I'm not sure what it is.

Here's two examples:

I'm testing the effectiveness of a drug. Drugs of this class have a certain likelihood of working, the noise in my data is known, the experimental group did this much better than the control... does the drug really work? So far so trivial, in either Bayesianism or Frequentism. Now, I happen to mention that I tested 10000 variants of this drug and only sent data for the one that seemed to work. The rest aren't interesting after all. Under Frequentism, it's easy to take this into account. Under Bayesianism, it requires complex definitions of observations, and is easy to overlook as there's no space for it in the formula.

I have a collection of unfair dice. Unfortunately, they all look the same and got dumped on the floor. Now someone grabbed one off the floor at random and wants to make bets with me about it. Even experienced Bayesians are likely to mix up their propositions in a case like this. I say that from having read discussions of similar problems. Yes, if you do it right, it comes out correctly, but Frequentism makes sure you've thought about what you're asking in the same way Bayesianism makes sure you've thought about your priors.

Somebody else will have to give a third example.

Bayesianism and Frequentism are based on the same math, and math is math. If you use them correctly, they'll get you the same answer every time. The difference is what they make easy, and what mistakes they protect you against.

How many legitimate websites use that CA? Especially ones Chinese users will visit often? If the browser blocks the CA, those will all break.

Perhaps the browser could do something subtler, but it's not straightforward. Or we could make the https cert protocol more flexible, but changing protocols is hard.

I don't think it's belligerent or simply compressed. AFAICT, it warns the listener that a lot is being left out. It is, in fact, the independent phrase version, using a single noun as the independent phrase. This tells the listener to deduce the rest of the phrase. The verb and object are generally omitted for reasons other than brevity.

"I added bacon to my ice cream because bacon" [is the most awesome thing ever] (and if you don't already know that or don't agree, I don't want to try defending it).

"The project failed because politics" [generally causes everything to fail] (and if I start talking about that I'll start ranting and no one wants that).

"Root beer in a square glass is beer because math" [uses "square" and "root" as opposites] (but if I said that explicitly it would harm the humor of the joke).

Contrast "I added bacon to my ice cream because of bacon", which would suggest that everything you need to know is there and it is the nature of bacon to be added to ice cream.

> I think he's saying that falsely implanted self-esteen, a la "everyones a unique special winner!", is a problem.

I certainly hated that growing up. It was years before I could believe I had done anything right, because people would say the same things either way.

But I think tokenadult was actually proposing something else: not focusing on oneself so much. Much like CS Lewis's concept of humility: "could create the greatest cathedral in the world, know it is the best, and rejoice in the fact that it is the most wondrous of all cathedrals; without being any more or less glad that he created it than he would be if someone else had created the cathedral."

Or to take another CS Lewis quote: "And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind - is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself." Focusing on self-esteem instead of the goal or substance at hand is shutting a creature within the dungeon of its own mind. That really is a great phrase for it.

Empirically, most suicides have more to do with corrupted thinking processes than a negative total life value expectation. Often the corrupted thinking process can be directly observed without knowledge of the suicide attempt. Often, people who are prevented from suicide are later grateful in ways that are unlikely to be faked.

I don't see much that an anti-suicide app could do in the cases where it is a rational decision, whereas it probably could provide relevant information and perspective to people who need it. So that sounds like an overall good thing (so long as it doesn't invoke forced hospitalization or drug changes or other backfiring interventions).

http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/25/in-defense-of-psych-tre...

> Most Google employees do not approve of a strategy that google is betting its future on. Has this ever happened before?

It was before my time, but I'm told acquiring youtube was unpopular. That seems to have worked out. I doubt it was as unpopular, though, and there was a lot less bet on it.

Former Googler here.

The vast majority of Googlers do not approve of G+ policies. However, Google has never been run democratically and most of the time that's probably a good thing.

Furthermore, the management has been much less forthcoming than usual about the thinking behind these policies. What they have said varies and usually sounds like excuses.

In short, don't expect actual information in this thread.

Are you saying your less technical relatives don't ask you for advice on internet matters? And take it?

Check the stats on reddit. There are a ton of people who want topic-focused discussion with strangers on the internet.

G+ seems to be trying to be both a public discussion forum and a hangout for existing friends at the same time. This is part of what makes it often unpleasant.

Most websites use email as the password recovery mechanism. "Authenticate by email" is strictly better than "authenticate by password or email".

A datacenter in/near SF doesn't make much sense. Electricity there is just too expensive. And, no, the waves in the bay aren't a solution.

I suppose you might build a datacenter there and then ship it to some third-world port where you don't want to do construction.

While I love the idea of a gmail datacenter in international waters with automatic guns to deter boarders, that really wouldn't fit Google's current political strategy.

Thank you. I've been doing that by hand.

Depends on the lighting conditions. Compared to paper reflecting indirect sunlight, computer screens are quite dim.

Given how many more votes US has than anything else, I think breaking it down would be warranted.

I'm thinking:

* San Fransisco Bay area * Seattle/Redmond area * Other west coast * Boston/Cambridge * New York * Other east coast * Chicago * Ann Arbor * Austin * Other noncoastal

Unless someone has observed otherwise, I'm betting continuous wouldn't work. The difference between "now" and "later" won't be as big, and it will take effort to calculate, which makes it feel smaller too. To effect people's day-to-day habits, you need to present a motivator to the affective decision centers.

Only one normal, but the maps and shopping that take up most of the space are still organic results, and probably more useful than the 'normal' ones.